Interstate
This body of work developed over a period of time while driving
across the highways of America.
With senses dulled by the innate monotony of interstate driving,
the ubiquitous and
indistinguishable fast food-gas station-convenience store hybrids,
the visual melting together of the byways into one vast median American
landscape, my interest and attention were captured by cargo trucks.
Over a number of hours, engaged in the game of advance and retreat
with enormous 18-wheelers, I began to pay particular attention to
the materials they carried, the array of industrial goods that support
“this American life”*.
I began to see these cargo trucks as a pivot point for art and culture.
Interested in interjecting chance as the editorial agent, I held
my camera up as we passed, taking random shots, uncertain of what
I would capture in the frame. In some instances, the speed
with which the vehicles were traveling results in a blur of color
and shape, a clearly unfocused vision. At other times I arrested
an odd perspective, an unexpected form, an irregular field of color
and line.
These photographs afford a means of seizing the vitality of an instant
from a sweeping sensory field. They are representative of the
way in which we experience daily life -- moments of heightened perception
extracted from the vast flood of visual and sensory information that
besieges us.
*Thanks to Ira Glass of NPR, this phrase undoubtedly belongs to
him.
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